Elton John finds easy scapegoat in gay marriage debate: religion

Elton John has finally reached the boiling point over the issue of gay marriage in California and now says he is “fed up” with being considered a “second-class” human being because of his sexual orientation.

Mr. John is married to David Furnish and the pair recently became parents, which makes California’s debate on the issue of same-sex marriage all the more galling to him.

“Everyone is entitled to have their own beliefs and their own spirituality,” Mr. John told the Associated Press. “The big difference is that the dogma of the church can be so hateful and divisive. It’s stuck in the stone age. We don’t live in the stone age anymore. The church is losing people left, right and center because people are fed up with the rhetoric that they’re giving them.”

Mr. John has found an easy target for his wrath and at the same time he has spread some divisiveness of his own. He assumes, like many others, that religious and the non-religious can be neatly divided on the issue of gay marriage. If only it were that convenient.

In 2008, citizens of California voted to define “marriage” as between a man and a woman. In doing so, they overturned an earlier court decision that said a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. In turn, that 2008 vote was overruled by the court and now there are groups lobbying to reverse the court decision. So at the moment, gay marriage is legal and the battle rages on.

There is no doubt that some major religious groups, especially the Roman Catholic Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, played an active role in campaigning for a ban on same-sex marriage.

But there were also a number of religious groups who supported gay marriage that Mr. John others might mention from time to time.

The United Church of Christ, with more than one million members, supports gay marriage. Among other Protestant denominations supporting gay marriage are the Episcopal Church of the United States, the Unitarian Universalists and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

The Evangelical Lutheran Church In America has been moving towards a more liberal interpretation and is considered a gay-friendly denomination.

Meantime, liberal Jews in the United States, the majority of American Jews, have little or no objections to gay marriage.

More revealing, though, is that the Public Religion Research Institute found, among other things, a strong correlation between those who oppose gay marriage and the number of times their pastors spoke against such unions.

Here is what the Public Religion Research Institute said:

“There are major religious groups on both sides of the debate over same-sex marriage in California. Solid majorities of Latino Catholics and white mainline Protestants say they would vote to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, while solid majorities of white evangelical Protestants, Latino Protestants, and African American Protestants say they would vote to keep same-sex marriage illegal.

“An overwhelming majority of Californians, and majorities of all major religious groups except Latino Protestants, say they both favor laws that would protect gay and lesbian people from job discrimination and favor allowing gay and lesbian people to serve openly in the military (75% and 69% respectively). A majority (56%) of Californians favor adoption rights for same-sex couples.

“In the wider California religious community, there are also significant Catholic-Protestant differences in the frequency with which each group hears about the issue of homosexuality from their clergy. Protestants are significantly more likely to hear about the issue than Catholics.”

In other words, the Catholic Church opposes same-sex marriage but the Catholics sitting in the pews rarely hear about the issue.

I should add that opposing gay marriage is not necessarily a sign of homophobia. Many who oppose same-sex marriage support a full range of civil rights for gay couples and have no objections to legalized unions. It is just the word “marriage” they want reserved for “traditional

Catholics, for example, are taught to love and respect gay people as fellow children of God. That may not satisfy many people but it is a fact.

There are also many people who hold anti-gay views who do not hold religious views. I have met lots of these people in my life and if you have not encountered them you have led a very sheltered life. There are all kinds of people who think of gay people as beneath contempt and a punch line to a joke — and any views these people have on gay marriage is part of a continuum of generalized hatred. These people are harder to define and to blame because they do not march in unison under an identifiable banner like Christianity.

So for the meantime, blame it all on religion. It is always good to have a convenient scapegoat.